Hank Aaron hit the last home run of his career, this being his last season.
The last American combat troops in Thailand were withdrawn from the country.
Viking 1, the first US craft to land on Mars, did so.
Last edition:
An American Apollo spacecraft and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft docked in orbit, marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
Occurring at 3:19 Eastern Time, Colonel Leonov welcomed General Stafford with the English words, “Glad to see you.” General Stafford, replyied in Russian,“A, zdraystvuite, ochen rad vas videt” (“Ah, hello, very glad to see you.”).
Protestors thew a Molotov cocktail and Crown Prince Akihito, and his wife, Princess Michito, on Okinawa.
Last edition:
It was the Mercury variant of the Pinto.
The United States ratified the Geneva Protocol of 1925, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare".
A bit late. . .
Landsat 2 was launched.
Last edition:
Today In Wyoming's History: November 16: 1973 President Richard M. Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law.
This is, I'll admit, one of those areas of history I should be interested in, but I'm not. I'm not sure why, but post Apollo space exploration just does't interest me very much.
The US opened its first diplomatic mission to the People's Republic of China.
Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty in Northern Ireland.
,_19_December_1972_(Ap17-S72-55974).jpg)
Apollo 17 splashed down, bringing to an end the Apollo missions.
Apollo 17 was launched.
It was the last of the Apollo missions and accordingly the last manned mission to the Moon.
This seems like something I should recall, but I don't. I would have been in 4th Grade at the time, and moon missions were a big deal, but as noted, this was the last one and the 17th Apollo Mission. Fifty years later, I can't recall having paid too much attention to this one, although it seems to me I dimly recall it.
On the same day, the last conscription induction call in U.S. history occurred. The call was to have been one of two to occur in 1972, but the second one was suspended due to a national day of mourning called by President Nixon in honor of Harry S. Truman, who died on December 26, 1972. The conscription call would have occurred on December 28.
The men who were chosen in the draft lottery on this day did not, I believe, immediately but in 1973. This was, after all, in December. Having said that, I'm not completely certain. 49,514 men were inducted into the service via conscription in 1972. 646 were inducted in 1973, with the final induction occurring on June 30, 1973, The height of the Vietnam War era induction occurred in 1966, when 382,010 men were inducted.
On January 27, 1973, President Nixon suspended conscription. In part this recognized the impending end of the Vietnam War, but the move was also clearly political and designed to address increasing civil unrest in spite of the obvious coming end of the war. Conscription had been resumed in 1948 and the Cold War was far from over, but moral in the U.S. military was disintegrating to the crisis level, which provided another, albeit unstated, reason for suspending the draft. The Army started rebuilding itself as an all volunteer force in 1973, but it would really take until the Reagan Administration for a new, effective Army to form.
Congressional authority to induct expired on June 30, 1973, although oddly lottery drawing continued until March 12, 1975. Registration for conscription terminated on April 1, 1975, which I can recall occurring. Registration would resume, however, a mere five years later, in 1980, and it remains a legal obligation for men.
Men drafted on this day would have found themselves in the odd situation of having to serve in the U.S. Army until late 1974, according to The New York Times, which ran a headline on November 23, 1974, that the last conscripts had been discharged. If that is correct, they must have been let go slightly ahead of schedule, which likely would have reflected the end of the Vietnam War and a drawdown that sought to eliminate men who didn't want to be there. Otherwise, the June 30, 1973, inductee should have served until June 1975. The last pool applied only to men born in 1952 or later, so it applied only to men in their early 20s, for practical purposes.
The end of the draft really returned the U.S. military to its historical norm. The Army had not conscripted at all until the Civil War, and then did not do it again until World War One. Militia service, of course, was mandatory in the US up until around the Civil War, when it started to slowly die off as a observed state requirement. The World War One and World War Two drafts had been enormous, with the US drafting 2,294,084 in 1918 alone, and 3,323,970 in 1943. Following 1940, there'd only been one year, 1947, in which there had been no inductions, up until 1974.
The last man inducted was Dwight Elliot Stone. He was a married plumbers apprentice living in Sacramento who was 24 years old at the time and had two kids. He tried to avoid to hide induction before finally turning himself in. He served in the Army for 17 months (which would make the NYT article at least a bit inaccurate) before being discharged early for reasons he wasn't aware of, but which were probably due to the fact that by 1975 the Army didn't really want unwilling soldiers around.
Stone went to basic training at Ft. Polk, at which the press followed him around a bit. He was trained as an electronic technician, after which he was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. Upon his discharged he was quoted as saying "I wouldn't have joined. It wasn't the place to be. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. I didn't like it. It was poorly run.''
In the early 70s, it was in fact poorly run.
Stone went back to work as a plumber/pipe fitter in Sacramento, but over time his view changed, as it did for many who had been conscripted in the same period. He later stated that while he didn't like being in the Army, he'd had a lot of fun while in it, and he used his service benefits to attend two years of college. His oldest son enlisted in the Marine Corps.
The Apollo 14 mission returned to Earth.
An earthquake killed 58 people in San Fernando, California. It measured 6.5 of the Richter Sale.
The Unites States Naval Reserve was established.
Most Navy officers in wartime are actually part of the Navy Reserve. It's stunning to think that it did not exist until 1915. It's stunning to think what would have resulted after the US entry into World War One without the Navy Reserve.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor of NASA, was founded in the United States. The Committee was instituted to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solution.
The GOP would likely eliminate it today.
Mount Mitchell State Park was established in Yancey County, North Carolina, the first state park North Carolina.
The GOP, which had no presence in North Carolina at the time, would probably oppose it today.
The Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge in Yuma, Arizona, was completed.
Last edition:
